Australian officials reprimand Meta after tech giant says it will stop paying for news
Meta, the parent company of Facebook, announced that it plans to stop striking deals to pay publishers of news content in Australia.
Meta, the parent company of Facebook, said Thursday that it plans to stop paying publishers of news content in Australia — a move that drew furious backlash from government officials in Canberra.
In a blog post, Meta said it would "not enter into new commercial deals for traditional news content" in Australia, France and Germany "and will not offer new Facebook products specifically for news publishers in the future."
"While we’ll be deprecating Facebook News in these countries," the tech giant added, "this announcement does not impact the terms under our existing Facebook News agreements with publishers" until they expire in those three countries.
Meta also said it plans to discontinue a tab on Facebook that promotes news content in Australia and in the United States, adding that it nixed the equivalent feature last year in the United Kingdom, France and Germany.
The announcement was met with stern criticism from Australian government officials who argued that Meta threatened to starve news publishers of revenue. Australia has been among the most aggressive countries in pushing Meta to pay news outlets.
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